Deleting metadata: Any good tools?

[WWGD]

Hi all,
I suspect some of the same, blackmail emails I've received may be the result if my carelessness in not clearing , cleaning/wiping out the metadata in some of the links, pics I've posted. I doubt PF is part of the problem, but likely others are.
Is there some good freeware to wipe it clean before posting? Is there something I can do now that the cat's out of the bag and my (meta)data is out there in Russia or one of the -stans?
TIA.

 

[.Scott]

If you generate a link using a search tool - like Google - then there will be "metadata" after the "?" in the url. That data is normally used to track you (as a search tool user) and allows results-based advertisement billing and in the selection of the ads shown to you later (although most of that will have been collected before you open the link).

To create a "clean link", I simply remove any long cryptic strings from the url and try out that new trim url. If that works, I then check to see if there are other parts of the url that may be unneeded.

As far as photos are concerned, you can import it into GIMP and then export it to an *.jpg file without metadata. With a bit more skill and research, GIMP allows "batch" processing of files, so you can clean up many pictures at once.
You can then check the result by looking at the file properties.

 

[FactChecker]

If you generate a link using a search tool - like Google - then there will be "metadata" after the "?" in the url. That data is normally used to track you (as a search tool user) and allows results-based advertisement billing and in the selection of the ads shown to you later (although most of that will have been collected before you open the link).

If he uses DuckDuckGo for his search engine will it still do that? I know that DuckDuckGo promotes itself as the search tool to use to prevent unwanted tracking and advertisements. That is why I switched to it, but I have not examined the results.